🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds form.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or whatever in those bushes," states the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a informal group of growers who make wine from four discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots throughout the city. It is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Around the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming global directory, which features more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the slopes of Paris's historic artistic district area and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and within Turin. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative re-establishing city vineyards in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help cities stay greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from development by establishing permanent, productive agricultural units within cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who tend the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the beauty, community, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he grew from a plant left in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the rain arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the enigmatic Eastern European grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and rotten berries from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her family in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated more than one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can make interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in low-processing vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the wild yeasts are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to establish her grapevines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on regular visits to France. But it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole challenge faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to install a fence on